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The reality of domestic violence does not disappear when people enter the digital world, as abusers may use technology to stalk, exploit, and control their victims. In this chapter, we discuss three unique types of technological abuse: (1) financial abuse via banking websites and apps; (2) abuse via smart home devices (i.e., “Internet of Things” abuse); and (3) stalking via geo-location or GPS. We also argue pregnancy and wellness apps provide an opportunity for meaningful intervention for pregnant victims of domestic violence.

While there is no way to ensure users' safety in all situations, we argue thoughtful considerations while designing and building digital products can result in meaningful contributions to victims' safety. This chapter concludes with PenzeyMoog's (2020) “Framework for Inclusive Safety,” which is a roadmap for building technology that increases the safety of domestic violence survivors. This framework includes three key points: (1) the importance of educating technologists about domestic violence; (2) the importance of identifying possible abuse situations and designing against them; and (3) identifying user interactions that might signal abuse and offering safe interventions.

Technology-facilitated abuse, so-called “tech abuse,” through phones, trackers, and other emerging innovations, has a substantial impact on the nature of intimate partner violence (IPV). The current chapter examines the risks and harms posed to IPV victims/survivors from the burgeoning Internet of Things (IoT) environment. IoT systems are understood as “smart” devices such as conventional household appliances that are connected to the internet. Interdependencies between different products together with the devices' enhanced functionalities offer opportunities for coercion and control. Across the chapter, we use the example of IoT to showcase how and why tech abuse is a socio-technological issue and requires not only human-centered (i.e., societal) but also cybersecurity (i.e., technical) responses. We apply the method of “threat modeling,” which is a process used to investigate potential cybersecurity attacks, to shift the conventional technical focus from the risks to systems toward risks to people. Through the analysis of a smart lock, we highlight insufficiently designed IoT privacy and security features and uncover how seemingly neutral design decisions can constrain, shape, and facilitate coercive and controlling behaviors.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive research model that can explain potential customers’ behavioral intentions to adopt and use smart home services.

This study proposes and validates a new theoretical model that extends the theory of planned behavior. Partial least squares analysis is employed to test the research model and corresponding hypotheses on data collected from 216 survey samples.

Mobility, security/privacy risk, and trust in the service provider are important factors affecting the adoption of smart home services.

To increase potential users’ adoption rate, service providers should focus on developing mobility-related services that enable people to access smart home services while on the move using mobile devices via control and monitoring functions.

This study is the first empirical attempt to examine user acceptance of smart home services, as most of the prior literature has concerned technical features.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) necessitated the need for “Hospital-at-home” improvisations that involve wearable technology to classify patients within households before visiting health institutions. Do-It-Yourself wearable devices allow for the collection of health data leading to the detection and/or prediction of the prevalence of the disease. The sensitive nature of health data requires safeguards to ensure patients’ privacy is not violated. The previous work utilized Hyperledger Fabric to verify transmitted data within Smart Homes, allowing for the possible implementation of legal restrictions through smart contracts in the future. This study aims to explore privacy-enhancing authentication schemes that are operated by multiple credential issuers and capable of integration into the Hyperledger ecosystem.

Design Science Research is the methodology that was used in this study. An architecture for ABC-privacy was developed and evaluated.

While the privacy-by-design architecture enhances data privacy through edge and fog computing architecture, there is a need to provide an additional privacy layer that limits the amount of data that patients disclose. Selective disclosure of credentials limits the number of information patients or devices divulge.

The evaluation of this study identified Coconut as the most suitable attribute-based credentials scheme for the Smart Homes Patients and Health Wearables use case Coconut user-centric architecture Hyperledger integration multi-party threshold authorities public and private attributes re-randomization and unlinkable revelation of selective attribute revelations.

The Cloud of Things (IoT) that refers to the integration of the Cloud Computing (CC) and the Internet of Things (IoT), has dramatically changed the way treatments are done in the ubiquitous computing world. This integration has become imperative because the important amount of data generated by IoT devices needs the CC as a storage and processing infrastructure. Unfortunately, security issues in CoT remain more critical since users and IoT devices continue to share computing as well as networking resources remotely. Moreover, preserving data privacy in such an environment is also a critical concern. Therefore, the CoT is continuously growing up security and privacy issues. This paper focused on security and privacy considerations by analyzing some potential challenges and risks that need to be resolved. To achieve that, the CoT architecture and existing applications have been investigated. Furthermore, a number of security as well as privacy concerns and issues as well as open challenges, are discussed in this work.

Domestic violence is a threat to the well‐being of many families in the UK, and a great burden on health, social care and police resources. Its management requires swift action either to protect the victims in their own homes, or to move them to more appropriate accommodation where the perpetrators will be unable to find and harm them. However, the risk of violence often remains and requires some immediate action and access to support services on a 24‐hour basis. Special call lines have been created both at national and at local level, but these are not always suitable when there is a risk of the perpetrator being aware of such communications. Telecare offers a more sophisticated and responsive way of managing the risks, and is becoming popular with local authorities across the country. While basic systems using alarm pendants to raise an alert are popular with most authorities, the addition of smart sensors and the use of video monitoring can both be used to good effect. In the future, it may be assumed that a much wider range of telecare devices will be deployed to provide automatic detection of problems, and to ensure that victims of abuse are protected appropriately both in their homes and in other locations. Most local authorities use at least some elements of telecare, but there may be considerable potential for improving support by including a greater level of technology, some of which could be provided through Supporting People programmes or through the police.

This paper aims to optimize the smart elderly housing planning with IoT (internet of things) technologies for an aging society in Dubai. To reflect the IoT technologies in the elderly housing, the characteristics of the IoT home network devices, applied to Ajman University (AU) testbed and smart services model with the IoT technologies are thoroughly analyzed.

To extract the optimal smart elderly housing model in Dubai, the Korean smart home model from smart cities in Korea was used to implement the testbed at AU. In total, 100 users survey had been performed to adjust the Korean model to local culture/context.

It was analyzed that convenience and functionality are factors that must be provided. The security system was pointed out as a common denominator for future enhancements. When IoT technologies are applied to elderly housing, it should focus on the safety and health management of the elderly.

Dubai had announced a strategy to transform into a Smart City in 2014 and the strategy had included 100 initiatives. The base unit of smart homes, however, was not covered and furthermore as society grows older, the priority for IoT technologies application in the smart home should be focused on smart elderly housing, as the elderly is equivalent to the handicapped due to deteriorated physical abilities.

The characteristics of the IoT home network devices applied to the AU testbed and smart services model with the IoT technologies are thoroughly analyzed.

The use of telecare with appropriate domiciliary care packages may provide the means to manage many of the risks associated with the increasing number of older people who wish to continue to live independently in their own homes. Those who become especially frail or disabled can retain their independence and quality of life if their homes are made ‘smart’. This paper discusses the range of services that are available, or under development, for the prototype ‘MIDAS’ (Modular Intelligent Domiciliary Alarm System) telecare system, which enable traditional community alarm, telecare and assistive technologies to be used in an integrated and intelligent fashion. A range of services that allow autonomous operation within the home (and hence increase the perceived independence of a client by decreasing the reliance on a response centre operator) known as ‘HAMISH’ may be used. It offers a wider range of cost‐effective services of relevance to both the individual, and to society, in different types of home environment including dispersed housing and new sheltered housing schemes.

This paper seeks to describe how the special built‐in features of modern smart phones can be used to open up the potential of these devices for use as assistive technologies in supporting the independence and quality of life of vulnerable people.

The paper describes, through a number of relevant examples, how low‐cost, downloadable applications enable the camera, the microphone, the accelerometer, the GPS receiver and the touch‐screen, to be used for specific assistive purposes.

Smart phones and their applications are capable of providing useful support to a range of vulnerable groups including people with sensory disabilities, diabetics and people suffering from mental health problems, epilepsy or communication issues. It is likely that mobile care services using smart phones will be offered in tandem with home telecare services to extend the independence of the service user from the home to the outside environment.

The paper demonstrates how smart phone applications are capable of transforming a high‐performance mobile phone into a number of different assistive devices that can improve the lives of millions of people with and without disability.